| > Oh yeah, egoism at its best lol. If I die, why shouldn't everyone else? Why not consider it from an alternative, less demonizing perspective? The author might simply be pointing out the fact that no matter how nice the things that you'd leave behind you would be, you won't be around to experience them. Therefore, it would be in your interest to actually... you know, not die. > Okay I am out. You really should get help. Definitely. Perhaps the author doesn't convey his thoughts in the most reasonable manner, but having children is indeed a huge responsibility and one that will take both energy from the parents as well as a lot of resources over many years. Noone should be having children just because they feel like it, especially NOT just because they'd like to leave a legacy of some sort. As the author points out, those children will grow up to be their own people and you'll need to support them to the best of your abilities, regardless of how different their views and values could be from yours. > Right now our gene pool is actively deteriorating because we managed to eliminate natural selection. I'm not sure whether natural selection really has been made less significant, however this appears to be at least partially supported by the information that i could find: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr051.pdf Based on the graphs in page 7, it appears that approx 85% of women reproduce and 76% of men do (at least up to 40 years of age), though there is more detail in the following pages. Would anyone care to comment with other sources that either support or disprove the claim that natural selection isn't a (big) factor nowadays? What about the deterioration of the gene pool? > Okay :D. Just dig yourself a concrete hole and live in there from bottles of Soylent and see what happens. There are tons of studies who show you how important a connection to nature is for the human body and mind, but well... I don't believe that the author expressed that this is the optimal way to go about things. Other people who also advocate for longetivity also seem to actually suggest that people should lead more active and healthy lifestyles, have better diets with elements of intermittent fasting/caloric restriction and so on. Even if we as a species cannot have immortality now, it is definitely worth to pursue enjoying our later years and remaining functional for longer, is it not? In that regard, nature is indeed our enemy if we don't look at what can affect us negatively (be it alcohol, smoking, sedentary lifestyle, bad diets, lack of sleep, or anything else) > But it definitely doesn't follow from the brainfarts that came before. It seemed to follow the previous statements pretty well - it is pretty important (at least from our subjective point of view) to remain alive and little if anything else can substitute that. Lastly, i'd like to quote the Hacker News Guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Let's remain civil here! |
And that is exactly what I meant.